There, we sat down with Frederick Waddell, director of golf ball product management, to talk through how golfers should actually go about testing balls, what it takes to bring Pro V1 to market, and the ball that's had everyone talking—Pro V1x Double Dot—and its potential to complicate an impending rollback. Listen to the full episode here.

After a stretch with various mallet offerings in the bag this season, Koepka returned to a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Teryllium that looked eerily familiar. It's his first start with a blade putter since the Farmers Insurance Open, but the head isn't the T10 Select Newport 2 that carried him to four major titles in two years (2017-19). This is the updated Teryllium TNP2, the version that was in his bag when he won the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill.

The distinction matters because Koepka doesn't appear to be chasing nostalgia by reinserting the exact putter from his major run; he's going back to the last blade that actually worked. Unfortunately, his opening-round 75 didn't provide any warm fuzzies.

You're actually going to have to see this one to believe it. The 2017 Masters champ managed to miss a tap-in for par on the 16th hole during the first round of the Irish Open. See for yourself:

Ouch. The DP World Tour's AI shot commentary had that one at two feet, but that couldn't have been more than 15 inches. Anyway, it was all part of a rough day for Garcia, who shot a five-over-par 75 and is 10 strokes off the lead set by fellow (former?) LIV player Joaquin Niemann. 

and take over for the retiring Bruce Heppler as men’s head coach at Georgia Tech sent shock waves through the college golf world. Hybl had been with the Sooners for 17 years, winning 51 tournaments there including the 2017 NCAA Championship. (Oh, and there was the little fact he was an All-American at the Tech’s biggest rival, Georgia.) But the move paid immediate dividends for Hybl and the Yellow Jackets. On Wednesday in the first event of its 2026-27 season, Georgia Tech beat Notre Dame and Texas by five shots at the Folds of Honor Collegiate. Tech freshman Max Emberson won medalist honors after shooting a final-round 67 at American Dunes Golf Club in Grand Haven, Mich. “Just so thankful for all these guys buying in,” Hybl told Golfweek. “Since June 4, our missing has been to build something that is long lasting.” 

He’s one of nearly a dozen LIV golfers playing in this week’s DP World Tour event in Doonbeg, Niemann specifically competing on a sponsor’s exemption. That’s important because should LIV’s all-time victory leader be contemplating a way out of the league as it goes through bankruptcy proceedings, he has a few more hurdles to climb than some of his fellow LIV compatriots. Unlike Jon Rahm, Tyrrell Hatton and a handful of others, Niemann didn’t play the minimum number of events last year to be a member in 2026. Should he win this week, however, Niemann would be eligible for DP World Tour membership in 2027. Otherwise, to play in DP World Tour events, he’ll need more sponsor’s exemptions.

Boy do we have a doozy for you. On Wednesday, Bryson DeChambeau, one of the most polarizing figures in all of golf, dropped a new YouTube video starring one of the most polarizing figures in all of television, Stephen A. Smith, filling in as his caddie. Needless to say, if you're a fan of hate watches, this is the best thing since the 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.'

In fairness to both DeChambeau and Smith, both have plenty of genuine fans, but neither's appeal would be as big it is without the army of haters they have courted over the years. Both understand the engagement game on a sub-atomic level, and play into it at every available opportunity. So what happens when they join forces? Will it be golf content gold or the equivalent of two nuclear warheads colliding in space? You'll just have to watch and find out. That's half the fun, after all.

The first obvious answer is score, and after that, most golfers will talk about greens in regulation. But even that can be an uneven gauge for certain players (assuming you even understand what it means—Shane Ryan explains how that can happen). The other day, after playing one of my best rounds of the year, I realized in hindsight I still didn’t hit many greens in regulation. But what I did do well, however, is give myself a lot of opportunities to save par. And that’s because I was successful in the stat I devised a few years ago— “greenside in regulation”. The metric is exactly as it sounds. You're either on the green, or you’re at least close enough to chip it on and potentially save par. For mid-handicappers like me who don’t count on a lot of birdie putts, it’s probably the best indicator of a decent score, and in my case, it was.

Especially if you’re teeing off in the inaugural Live Más Open, presented by (who else but) Taco Bell. Hosted by Kevin Hart, the November event will combine celebrities, athletes, creators … and maybe you?

To participate, you can compete at a participating Topgolf venue in a special Shot Shuffle game, with nine fans making the cut for the 36-golfer tournament at The Ranch at Laguna Beach. The grand prize is as big as these things get: “the power to bring back a Taco Bell menu item for a limited time.” Who cares about the FedEx Cup $10 million grand prize when you can resurrect the Flamin' Hot Grilled Cheese Burrito?

She was scheduled to be in the wedding party of her best friend in Los Angeles this weekend. She didn’t make the U.S. Solheim Cup team, but she got a call from captain Angela Stanford. Vu was asked to be an alternate. Sometimes the alternate doesn’t travel, but with Angel Yin’s game an unknown, having just returned from a two-month absence due to gastrointestinal issues, Vu was asked to go to the Netherlands, just in case. Yin has practiced all week and is scheduled to play. If Vu doesn’t play, she’ll head to Los Angeles on Friday so that she can attend the wedding. “I was supposed to be in the wedding, but we’re settling for guest,” Vu said.

It’s a scenario Vu, the former World No. 1 and two-time major winner, hadn’t envisioned. She is now ranked 235th in the world and has made just six of 19 cuts this season and has missed eight straight. She played in the previous two Solheim Cups. “I honestly didn’t know that teams had alternates,” Vu said. “I definitely took a second to think about it. In my mind, leading up to when the team was going to be announced, I was either going to play my way in or get picked or I wouldn’t make it. There was no in between.”

The newest addition joins a family built on the idea that accomplished golfers don't all want the same thing from a forged iron. The S-1 muscleback leans into workability and direct feedback. The S-3 cavity-back, oddly the first club released in the family, added stability. Now the S-4 ($215 per club) pushes another step toward playability, though its compact profile keeps it in the better-players category.

Every S-4 head is forged in Hiroshima, Japan, from a single billet of 1025E carbon steel and run through Mizuno's Grain Flow Forged HD process, with a copper sandwiched in between to soften feel at impact and Harmonic Impact Technology tuning the sound on top of it. None of that's new to the family. What's different is the shape: a curved muscle that pushes more mass low in the head, with a wider sole, deeper center of gravity, and a lower sweet spot, all aimed at making the long irons launch easier and keeping mishits from leaking distance.

That shaping tapers through the set—more offset and topline for confidence that's carefully scaled down through the scoring irons. The Triple-Cut Sole's beveled edges handle the rest, letting the head slide through turf instead of digging on steep contact. It's a forged iron for players who'll admit they want a little help, as long as it doesn't show.